Summary

Weather-wise this year’s HMD was not that great. In Tokyo we had a little rain at night, but our average audience increased to 27 (average capacity of venue was 39). Depending on the venue, the number of films shown varied from six to 15, running costs were from 0 yen to 30,000 yen (average 9,000 yen), and the number of volunteers was from three to twelve. We thank our international guests, Brigitte Paulowitz, John Stewart, and Quentin Turner at HMD Yanesen despite the fact the the event was monolingual. I hope they enjoyed the special home movie time created by our local rep.

We mainly deal with 8mm but HMD Yanesen and Nagoya had one 16mm each this year. The films HMD Japan is showing are increasingly from the old days. We realised that those venues holding HMD for a long time now have a very strong team of volunteers who do a great job. For the first time ever, HMD Misawa had outside screenings, which went successfully.

Through the mailing list, the reps talked a lot about how to take action against influenza (it was in the flu season, and there was a lot of hysteria about avoiding crowds in the media), and also about copyright, as one of the “best hmd” films had a scene showing a TV broadcasting “East of Eden” (1955).

Publicity

We put the HMD PR Video on YouTube (both original and english subtitled version) as our first attempt and it had over 700 hits. This video was made by our member Mariko Goda, who has been making our “Adopt-a-Film” PR for a long time.

All in all, we have to admit that this year was a bit quieter on the media coverage side. HMD Misawa and Hirowaki had big articles in the local newspaper after the event, and HMD Nagoya was successfully introduced in advance in Asahi Newspaper with a long interview with the rep, Satoe Tamura. Everyone loved this article as it explains how much fun she is having through the HMD activities and naturally shows the wonderfulness of film preservation. Eventually HMD Nagoya had over 55 in the audience, which was a record for them.

We got really excited when a passionate publicity person from Fujifilm Photomuseum came to visit us about their participation to HMD well in advance, in connection with their exhibition “Nostalgic Home Movies ― from the Zoetrope to Single 8 Film”. Unfortunately they did not do any special events related to this exhibition, and their ultimate decision was to pull out of HMD. I felt that in their rather small but beautifully done exhibition, 8mm films were totally in the past and we could just see them displayed as antiques. Yet Fujifilm Square in Roppongi is great place to visit if you have time in Tokyo, and don’t miss their fabulous museum shop!

According to Fujifilm’s press release dated 2nd June, 2009, Fujifilm is going to stop the sale of FUJICHROME R25N in March 2012 and FUJICHROME RT200N in May 2010. And Fujifilm’s processing service is going to end in September 2013.

All the photos from HMD Japan 2009 can be seen at: Flickr.

Networking

Suddenly from last year, a lot of regional film archiving projects are emerging in Japan. And Film Festivals in Japan are showing more and more interest in regional films. When they have symposiums, seminars or workshops, at least one or two FPS members go to see what’s going on, but it seems they are mainly focusing on the contents, digitization and how to make good re-use of old footage. We had never come across film preservation ethics or long term preservation efforts. I was invited to Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in October this year to introduce FPS’ activities. They also had home movie related screenings during the festival. I’m hoping that they will have HMD next time in 2011.

FPS is also getting involved in a new regional film archive project from next Spring in Bunkyo-ward, Tokyo (where FPS’ office is). So, we’ll keep making efforts to place emphasis on the preservation side of this sort of project. For the temperature controlled vault, our institutional member Kyoshin Warehouse Co., Ltd. is renovating their vault – used to be a storage for food – into a special vault for Audiovisual materials (five degrees). And we are ready to make a contract with them when it’s complete.

Reps and Volunteers

I especially wish to thank Asako Takemori (HMD Misawa & Hirosaki), Satoe Tamura (HMD Nagoya), Yuko Shiota (HMD Senju), Keiichi Shima (HMD Yanesen) and Nozomi Nakagawa (HMD Kodaira) for their cooperation and considerable input. It feels so great to witness their progress year by year. Nozomi is our accountant, and also taking charge of film inspection and film projection workshop for newcomers as a leader of FPS’ Small Gauge Dept. SGD is opening a new inspection room near the FPS office in 2010.

We had a reps meeting before HMD on 16th August 2009 (13 reps and potential reps attended), and will have another meeting after HMD on 28th November 2009 in ELMO headquarters in Nagoya, and best home movies screenings follow on the same day at Cultural Path Shumokukan – they have an English website here.

Volunteers:
(in Misawa)
Saiko Horiuchi, Hisashi Ando, Takeo Mochizuki, Kana Yamamoto, Sachiko Yamashita, Sakiko　Kimura, Ai Moriyama, Misato Chikayama, Eri Yamaki, Toshiko Shimokawa, Akiko Miura, Yuko Tamo, Yoko Matsuhashi
(in Hirosaki)
Satoshi Shibata, Keiko Saito, Masafumi Takebayashi
(in Senju)
Yasuhide Takanashi, Hidetoshi Sase, Idle Man
(in HMD Yanesen)
Satoko Ohashi, Sadanobu Iida, Mariko Goda, Chie Nagai, Ryuji Nakayama, Shigeki Arimitsu, Mari Kawamoto
(in HMD Kodaira)
Mikio Yamazaki, Yuko Kodama, Keiko Imai
(in HMD Nagoya)
Hiroki Yamashita, Kazuo Shinato, Miyuki Takeda, Yoko Fukada, Nobuaki Hara, Ayumi Hara, Yoji Hasegawa, Saki Tanaka, Masako Kitamura

Best HMD 2009 from Japan!

MISAWA
Organizer: Asako Takemori
Venue: Misawa City Library
Mikawame Public Adult Lecture
R8, BW, Sil., 4minutes, 1965
from Misawa City Hall

This is one of the 25 regular 8 films discovered in Misawa City Hall. All of them were in boxes but the descriptions on them did not match the contents of the film. The original box of this film says “Cultural Festival” but there was Mikawame Community Center shot in the film, so it is supposed to be in the box saying “Mikawame Public Adult Lecture”. Bashful local ladies at the commemorative photo-op at the end of the lecture are impressive.

HIROSAKI
Organizer: Asako Takemori
Venue: Menbo Takeya – soba restaurant
Odate; Sketch of the Snow Country
S8, Color, Sil., 8minutes, year unknown
from Kazuo Yoshida

This film consists of three parts; In the main street of Odate city, Akita pref, you’ll first see the “Snow Vehicle”. Then, a festival called Amekko-ichi (Candy Fair) in this same street. Every February they have this seasonal tradition with the belief that if you eat candy on the day, you’ll never catch cold. And the last part of the film is about the film owner’s wife Kimiko and icicles, which was the audience’s favourite. Mr Yoshida is scared of heights, and asked his wife to deal with the big icicles at the second floor, which is beautifully shot. She passed away last February right before the Candy Fair.

SENDAI
Organizer: Hidenori Sakamotoi
Venue: Sendai City Museum of History and Folklore
Yellow Patrol
R8, Color, Sil., 8minutes, mid-1960s
from Yasutoshi Ishikawa

A rapid increase in car accidents accompanied the increase in the number of cars around 1962 to 63, Nippon-unyu (shipping company) started educational activities to promote road safety. They created a theme song “Good kids’ road is good way to go home” and assembled “Yellow Patrol” to do a campaign combining traffic rules and gymnastic exercises. They visited schools from Hokkaido to Kyushu with the cooperation of local police departments. This film is a record of their visits to schools in Sendai and Morioka.

SENJU
Organizer: Yuko Shiota
Venue: Senju Yanagicho Ju-ku Center
A Launch Party for Nissan’s “Datsun”
W8, BW, Sil., 3minutes, 1958
from Moriko Oishi

This film is about a launch party for Nissan’s “Datsun” in 1958 on the rooftop of Mitsukoshi department store. In those days, department stores were trendsetting places, and what was special about this car was that it used a plastic body for the first time in Japan. They own a car factory (now it’s a car shop) and shot a lot of footage in the factory such as “A Day in the Factory” or “Three-wheeler Inspection”.

KODAIRA
Organizer: Nozomi Nakagawa
Venue: Gas Museum
1977 Okutama, Festival of Dolls, Piano Recital
S8, Color, Sil., 4minutes, 1977
from Masako Miyatake

Kodaira-city is located in the heart of greater Tokyo and Bridgestone Tire Factory is in the very center of the city. This film shows a girl brought up in the area in Spring 1977. She spends New Year’s day with her family in the company’s recreation facility, and wears traditional kimono for the dolls festival in March, and is in a brand new dress for a piano recital. She shared with the audience a lot of memories from her childhood.

YANESEN
Organizer: Keiichi Shima
Venue: Miyanaga Kaikan
Hiro-chan’s Wedding Party
R8, BW, Sil., 8minutes, 1971
from Etsuo Watanabe

Wedding party in 1971, Sendai at an old style Japanese restaurant. You will see a slightly nervous groom pouring Sake for the relatives, and a shy bride is bashful at the movie camera, a grandfather in formal Japanese dress sings the traditional wedding Noh chant “Takasagoya” and towards the end, a drunken attendee starts the perennial “catching loach” dance. Although it’s a silent film, you can gradually hear the cheerful sound as the party goes on.

NAGOYA
Organizer: Satoe Tamura
Venue: Cultural Path Shumokukan
New Year 1969
S8, Color and BW, Sil., 15minutes, 1969
from Katsutoshi Kitazawa

At the beginning, you’ll see the mochi pounding tradition at the film owner’s house. They go to the shrine later on – another typical thing to do at Japanese New Year. On the 3rd January, they visit one of their relatives in Tokyo by driving “Subaru 1100 sports”, and it turns into a roadmovie. It shows Tokyo University’s campus where the student activism over Yasuda-kodo symbolized the year 1969. and also surroundings of Minamiazabu area in Tokyo. The beautiful snowcapped Mt. Fuji and the sports car are wonderfully shot at the end on their way back from Tokyo.

*HMD Osaka, Nishifunabashi, and Sangenchaya are not taking part in best HMD screenings. We’ll make a Best HMD 2009 from Japan DVD as usual as our activity record and promotion tool.

Summary

We’ve been dealing with 8mm, 9.5mm and 16mm in past HMDs but this year all films shown were 8mm. The average audience was 25 (average capacity of venue was 50). Depending on the venue, the number of films shown varied from seven to 23, cost was from 3,000 yen to 30,000 yen (average 13,000 yen), and the number of volunteers was from two to eleven. All in all, it was rather small scale.

We are not aiming to make each venue bigger but will try to gain new venues one by one. We will continue building up the network of HMD organizers all over Japan, and make efforts to report about it both nationwide and worldwide.

Publicity

In the local town, HMD always gets a degree of media attention and quite substantial articles tend to appear in the newspaper. In a big city like Tokyo, on the other hand, autumn time is difficult, as so many cultural events are going on at the same time and such a small attempt like HMD is easily hidden in their shadow. Accordingly the size of audience was smaller than last year, however, their reaction was as emotional and touching as before.

As HMD is a free of charge event, three venues asked for donations which more or less covered their total event costs. Most organizers found a venue they could rent for free. They are amazingly good at finding places with a good atmosphere – restored historical buildings, local museums, and even soba (Japanese noodle) restaurants… ! And HMD really gets a lot of help from the owners of those venues.

On 25th Nov, Nikkei’s evening paper (sold nationwide) printed a great article introducing HMD from which we already got good reactions via emails and phonecalls.

FPS has got all the flyers and related materials submitted by each organizer (the same file is going to be sent to CHM), for future reference.

Networking

This year, the network of organizers was really developed through our mailing list and reps meeting held on 16th of August in Tokyo. They exchanged information and encouraged each other, which resulted in the first ever “Best HMD Japan screenings” to be held outside of Tokyo, in Misawa, Aomori on 23rd Nov 2008 -  the northernmost ever town in HMD Japan.

“Best HMD Japan Project” just simply asks each organizer to pick up one film from the venue, ideally shorter than 10 minutes. It’s not a contest but FPS is going to telecine all the films, and make a compilation DVD as usual as a sample or reference for new organizers. We have a contract paper about this DVD production between FPS, film owner, and local organizer.

HMD related photo data submitted to FPS can be seen at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fps/sets/72157608350715588/

For HMD2009, we’ll have a reps meeting on August 15th 2009 in Tokyo (before HMD) and in late November of the same year in Nagoya – the venue will be at ELMO company’s headquarters. Best HMD screenings will be at Shumokukan – a preserved historical building in Nagoya.

Best HMD 2008 from Japan!

HIROSAKI
Organizer: Asako Takemori
Venue: Menbo Takeya
Mari’s Birthday (seven years old)
S8, Color, Snd., 3minutes, 1979
Mari Oyama

What is Mari-chan going to do when her dad starts shooting her on her birthday? This film just shows Mari-chan and her birthday cake and other dishes but it made the audience laugh and got a huge round of applause at the very end of HMD Hirosaki (the venue was a soba, Japanese noodle, store). Can you cope with her cuteness?

SENDAI
Organizer: Hidenori Sakamotoi
Venue:Sendai City Museum of History and Folklore
Kurashi no Memo
R8, Color, Sil., 9minutes, 1959
Tadano

KITASENJU
Organizer: Yuko Shiota
Venue: Theatre 1010
Cycling: challenge for 80km long ride
S8, BW, Snd (Open Reel), 6minutes, 1969
Eiichi Watanabe

Eiichi bought a brand new bicycle for his son, and this is the record of their first cycling day, from Kitasenju to Edo river in Kasukabe city in Saitama. The purpose is to play with a kite there. Shooting, editing, narration were done by Eiichi by himself. He had never shown this film to anybody else but his family before HMD, as he just wanted to leave the films for his children when they are grown up. He declared that without the HMD opportunity he would have thrown away his 8mm film collection.

KODAIRA
Organizer: Nozomi Nakagawa
Venue: Gas Museum
Iruma Air Base Festival
S8, Color, Snd, 10minutes, 1982
Shiro Koyama

On November 3rd every year, Iruma Air Base (in Saitama prefecture) holds an Aircraft show. This film shows the acrobatics of the Blue Impulse. Immediately after this show, the same Impulse crashed at Hamamatsu base, which resulted a disaster, so this show was canceled for a while. Shiro himself shot this film.

YANESEN
Organizer: Keiichi Shima
Venue: Nezu Church
My Uncle in the US, Kiichi-san’s visit to Japan
R8, BW, Sil., 5minutes, 1963?
Noriko Kumagai

This film starts showing the plane in which Uncle Kiichi is travelling arriving at Haneda Airport, Tokyo. In the train station in Iwaki city, Fukushima Prefecture, all the relatives welcome him, and you see his visit to his hometown, spending time with people there. It was shot by Kiyomi, Noriko’s father, and he meant to send this film to Joy (Kiichi’s son) in the US, but for some reason it was found at home in Japan, and brought to HMD Yanesen. Kiichi, who used to be a mechanical engineer, is now 86 years old and still lives in the US. After telecineing this film, we are sending the DVD to him.

JUJO
Organizer: Naohiko Yanagida
Venue: cinecafe soto
Growing Up Diary
R8, BW, Sil., 12minutes, 1966
Michiaki Shimizu

This is of historical value as it shows the local area of Jujo about 40 years ago. Michiaki shot this to show his kids growing up.

SHIMOKITAZAWA
Organizer: Akira Takato
Venue: Daizawa Cchiku Kaikan
Namegawa Island
S8, Color, Sil., 3minutes, 19??
Masaharu Katayama

NAGOYA
Organizer: Satoe Tamura
Venue: Former House of Sasuke Toyoda
At Furuma
S8, Color, Snd., 15minutes, 1981
Yoko Fukada

Yoko’s mother’s hometown in Furuma, in Nagano prefecture. It’s Obon ceremony time (Japanese thanksgiving), and all the relatives are gathering together. Her mother has eight brothers and sisters, so there are quite a lot of people and it’s noisy. The film was shot by Yoko’s uncle Minoru Asahara.